After getting back from Monterey, I only had a few days before going back to school for the semester. I decided to take advantage of my free time and get in contact with Jake. Luckily, our schedules lined up and we managed to do a couple dives at Old Garden beach, in Gloucester MA. On…
My last day in Monterey I didn’t get the chance to go diving. There was nobody to dive with me, and I chose to let my gear dry instead of pushing the time where it was safe to fly before my flight. Instead, I got the chance to go on a morning whale watching cruise!!…
Day 6 in Monterey was my last day of diving. In the morning, I didn’t have a dive buddy since it was a Saturday and everyone from the shop was busy. Still, Berkeley agreed to take me out on his boat. I went with the fisheye lens again, and we went back to the breakwater,…
My fifth day in Monterey was my last with Jamil. Getting to spend this week with him was a ton of fun! It was amazing to hear about all his adventures, and the amazing things he has planned for the future. In the morning, we had some free time, and managed to get one last…
My fourth day in Monterey, Jamil and accompanied Robin and Thomas to fisherman’s wharf, a fun macro dive site full of little critters. I was hoping to find a bunch of little blennies hiding in the rocks that I could photograph with my macro lens, but the swell was too great to get any good…
My third day in Monterey, Jamil and I did three dives by ourselves. Our two morning dives we did in front of the shop, the first along the breakwater, and the second right in the middle of the bay, what’s called center reef. I took my macro lens, and while they weren’t as productive for…
My second day in Monterey, Jamil and I got a chance to dive off backscatter owner Berkley White’s boat! I took my wide-angle camera setup and we went out to the end of the breakwater, jumping in the water with the massive sea lion colony that resides at the end of the pier. On the…
`My trip to Monterey started out like most cross-country trips do, an early morning plane flight lugging my excess baggage across the country. Luckily, my plane flights were uneventful and I landed safely in the quaint Monterey regional airport where Becca from Backscatter picked me up. It was already late into the evening, so she…
Yesterday I had the great opportunity to join many of the Sea Rovers on a dive on the Chester Poling. The Chester Poling is a ship that sank in 1977 just outside of Gloucester harbor. Apparently, a massive storm hit the ship just outside of port and the violent waves ripped the boat in half….
A couple days ago I had the chance to do some scientific research dives with Ted Maney. He’s continuing a 40+ year-long project documenting the health of the benthic environment at several sites along the North shore. About a month ago I went with him to do surveys at Halfway rock, but today we went…
On my second day of working at East Coast Divers, my main job was helping get the shop ready for the big tax-free weekend sale that East Coast was running on Saturday and Sunday. Every year East Coast holds a big party with food and drinks, which help entice customers to buy the newest gear….
This week I got the chance to spend a couple days helping Sea Rovers President Nick Fazah out in his dive shop, East Coast Divers. East Coast is located in Brookline, MA and helps support much of the diving community coming out of the greater Boston area. My day was filled helping Nick out around…
Yesterday I got the chance to do some more underwater photography practice at Old Garden Beach in Rockport, MA. I brought my underwater camera with the macro lens on because the water quality in Massachusetts isn’t conducive to wide angles this time of year. We saw a lot of great macro subjects to practice on….
A few days ago I had the chance to Join Rick Simon once again on one of his commercial diving operations. He had been hired to help the United States Naval Research Lab with their operations (don’t worry this is all declassified information). The Navy is interested in being able to identify unexploded ordinances on…
Our final day in Catalina we did two more dives. For the first dive, I again focused on my wide angle photography, trying my best to capture the depth of the towering kelp forest. At the end of my dive, I also got the chance to play around with over-unders, using the big dome port…
My second day in Catalina was even more eventful than the first. We ended up doing 3 dives, with one of our main goals being to find the Giant Sea Bass that we knew were hanging around the area. Giant Sea Bass can grow to 500 pounds, and so provide a spectacular subject for wide…
While on a family trip to Catalina Island, I got the great chance to do some diving using the amazing gear I was gifted by the Sea Rovers Donors. Catalina Island is known for its spectacular kelp forests and rich marine life close to shore, so I was excited to take my first crack at…
Recently I had the great opportunity to go out with Joe and Lauren Romeiro for a second time. We headed out on their boat the Warfish with the goal of filming blue and mako sharks. This time we didn’t go so far, only a couple hours out to sea off the coast of Rhode Island….
A few days ago I had the great opportunity to go diving with Sea Rovers Ted Maney and Vin Malkoski. We headed out of the Cat Cove Marine Lab, with the goal of helping Ted with his benthic surveys at Halfway Rock. Halfway Rock is a small rocky outcropping a short boat trip out from…
Recently I had the amazing opportunity to join Joe and Lauren Romeiro on their boat the Warfish. They are both shark biologists and filmmakers, heavily involved in the filming and production of shark week in association with Discovery. We set out in the early morning from Rhode Island, travelling far out to sea in the…
For the last couple of days I had the great chance to collect quahogs with Vin Malkoski! Vin needed to collect 12 quahogs from 10 different locations around New Bedford Harbor in order to sample them for PCB contamination. While PCBs are no longer present in the water column, they can linger in sediments, so…
On Monday, Sea Rover Rick Simon took me out on his commercial diving boat Miss Wendy. Prior to this I had almost no knowledge of what commercial diving entailed so it was great to be exposed to this entirely different side of the diving world. While out on the boat, I helped on deck while…
On Sunday, Sea Rover Vin Malkoski took me down to Fort Wetherill State Park, RI to help me get acquainted with my great DUI drysuit. The water was a nippy 49 degrees so it was definitely needed. On our first dive we refreshed some basic skills made slightly harder with a drysuit such as taking…
Thursday was the first official day of my internship! I had the amazing opportunity to go out with Greg Skomal who heads the research team for the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy. We left early out of New Bedford and steamed all along the southern arm of the cape, eventually ending up on the eastern coast…
My name is Russell Laman and I’m going to be this summer’s intern for the Boston Sea Rovers! My internship was supposed to take place last summer, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this amazing opportunity was deferred by a year making me the longest serving intern in Sea Rovers history! So… let’s get…